How does Romania “force” Schengen accession? We are ready to give up the controls. What does Austria say?

In a few days, Romania will enter Schengen with air and port borders. Thus, boarding checks on planes and ships are suspended.

However, checks on land, at the border, remain a very thorny matter. This, because at the western borders with Hungary, they wait for hours.

How does Romania “force” Schengen accession? We are ready to give up the controls. What does Austria say?

The Border Police sent a forceful message saying that it is ready in all respects to give up the countermeasures on the border with Hungary.

“The Romanian Border Police is also prepared at the present time to give up land border controls.

This very week, at the level of the Ministry of the Interior, in all arms, a project is underway for the purchase of mobile terminals for the verification of all persons, regardless of whether they present themselves at border control or in localities or near the state border. We are ready, but we are waiting for the answer to the question of when we will be integrated with the land borders from elsewhere,” said the head of ITPF Oradea, in the meeting of the Prefectural College of Bihor County, according to the Ebihorian

With this declaration, Romania is trying to force the hand of Austria, which strongly opposes Romania’s accession to the Schengen area, although the entire EU is favorable to us.

Be more vigilant with migrants

In the same context, the Border Police has shown that it is effective and that it has reached a maximum of detected migrants.

The year 2023 was marked from the point of view of illegal migration, by a historical maximum of the number of people detected at the border with Hungary, with 11,672 detections recorded (compared to 6,907 for the year 2022, respectively 9,599 for the year 2021). The total number of detections in PTFs increased by approximately 65%. Last year, 7,645 people tried to cross the border illegally, 7,633 on the way out of Romania and 12 on the way in.

Austria doesn’t want to hear it

Read also: Karner shatters Romania’s dream of Schengen accession: “I think it is wrong to speculate on the next step”

Newsweek Romania wrote that Austria is, however, adamant and does not take a single step back. Romania is accused of not securing its borders and that there are too many Romanian criminals in Austria.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) took stock of what he considers to be a “year of deportations”.

Surprisingly and extremely unfortunate for us, the Austrian minister says that Romanian and Bulgarian citizens behaved even more inappropriately than the migrants, writes the Austrian press read by Newsweek. Details in LINK below.

Read also: Goodbye, Schengen! Austria points the finger at Romania. “Romanian citizens, more dangerous than migrants”

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